I need all your attention and I need all of your focus; I’m not prepared to share your devotion. I need, I need, need I to know that your working only for me.

An intimate rapport of respect and admiration often accompany the sponsor sponsee relationship. A sponsee might feel that your attentions are being divided and he or she is not getting your full focus and his or her growing connection is not fully reciprocal. The suggestion is do not mention your other current sponsees; you can mention a former sponsee’s predicament and resolution so that it may help with a particular understanding or Step work.

I never take them anywhere together as a group. If my sponsees figure out who their fellow sponsees are, that’s okay, but I don’t tell them.

I believe strongly in this separation of sponsees for several reasons:

1) It strengthens our humility. Our grandiosity is easily fed by being surrounded by an entourage of sponsees. Sponsees are not trophies of our recovery.

2) It eliminates the potential development of sibling rivalry among sponsees. It is easy for sponsees to become jealous of one another over the amount of time and attention paid to them in relation to their fellow sponsees.

3) It prevents us from intentionally or unintentionally playing favorites with our sponsees our pitting one against the other for our own selfish ends

A Suggestion: refrain from introducing someone your are working with as Your sponsee we do not take possession they are just on loan, John or Jane will suffice on the other hand if they wish to introduce you as their sponsor it is cool beans inside the program, outside the program it is a breach of personal anonymity and it is not cool.

How do I treat a high-profile sponsee such as a politician, a thespian or financial magician?

All alcoholics are created equal, but when some are more equal than others

The same way you would treat somebody who was not famous. Alcohol is not a respecter of persons. When I sponsor a doctor a lawyer or a captain of industry I make it known from the get go, to me they are just another Bozo on the bus, of the common garden variety. In fact it is crucial that you treat your high-profile sponsee that way. One of the problems with celebrities who are trying to recover is that they are likely to receive special treatment that indulges their fantasies and their grandiosity. Celebrities are like everyone else, except they are legends in their own mind agreed in kind by many. They are just as unlikely to be ungrateful, angry, depressed on the pity pot, and self centered as the rest of us.

What they need in a sponsor is someone who will call them on their inappropriate behavior and addictive thinking. They need the same discipline and tough love as everybody else in the program.

Losing my anonymity in this world I think is something that I find terrifying almost as much as not being recognized at all

The problem with losing your anonymity is that you can never go back. Marla Maples

When dealing with a high-profile sponsee, always protect his or her anonymity

Never break it anyone under any circumstance. It is nobody’s business inside the program or out side the program whom you sponsor. You have no right to tell anyone that you are sponsoring a famous person; much less tell anything that the person has told you. If you are not capable of keeping your famous sponsee’s identity completely Confidential, then you should refuse to sponsor that person. Not being able to brag about your sponsee is the price you pay for sponsoring him or her.

There is nothing so common as the wish to be remarkable. William Shakespeare

Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, “What’s in it for me? Brian Tracy

One of the requirements for sponsoring a high-profile people is being willing not to take advantage of them. If you cannot resist the temptation to ask them to help you sell a movie script, find a job, influence a piece of legislation, get you a coveted ticket, and arrange an invitation to a party, set up an introduction, get their dealers phone number or gain access to their face book and twitter account, and so on, you have no business sponsoring them. It is a betrayal of the sponsorship relationship to ask high-profile sponsee or any sponsees for that matter any thing other than to work their programs to the best of their abilities. In the case of a high-profile sponsee there is a greater temptation to try and take advantage. Let’s face it; they have that much more to offer.